I’ve been involved in the MS Walks for 17 years now. The walks have become a family tradition like Christmas mornings and favourite family vacations. What better way to bring a family together than through a crisp April morning, a Timmy’s double double, and tightening our laces to help find an end to a disease that has invaded our homes, attempted to steal our joy, and impacted our families.
My daughters were just eight and three years of age when we walked for the first time in 1993. They still can recall fond memories made during their years growing up, walking to end MS. They asked everyone they knew to sponsor them and wore the hard-earned MS Walk T-shirt with pride. From frosty breath, to mittens and mud, to face paintings, to Loblaw’s lunches – my girls were there. They walked alongside me as we raised money to stop the illness that had made its unwelcome home in their young lives.
Their little sister arrived in 1994 and she, too, took up the family tradition, and walked and strolled with us.
In the past few years, I’ve moved behind the scenes, helping in the planning, registration, and publicity of the MS walk. But my heart still tugs as I watch hundreds of people warm up and head outdoors in the chilled morning air to start the walk. A lump grows in my throat. They are changing the world!
As the rented school cafeteria quiets down in anticipation for the weary walkers’ return in a couple of hours, a part of me still wishes I was out there with them, walking alongside.
My oldest daughter is 24 now and expecting her first child, a son in July. My hope is she will instil the same family tradition, teaching her little guy the value in walking, not because he can, but because so many others can’t.
